For Generation Z, the path to the future can feel as though it is filled with cracks. El Paso – often labelled as a “brain drain city,” can frame the job opportunities as limited.
Younger generations often question if there are a limited number of job options or if they just not looking in the right places, leading for many to flee to bigger job markets.
Because of the limitless opportunities for the future, younger generations often feel overwhelmed by the negative connotation around job searching and future planning is what the newly established program Centre Future hopes to ease.
Located at the Main Library at 501 N Oregon St., Centre Future focuses on mentoring and empowering 16 to 24-year-olds in El Paso. The organization is free and offers developmental tools, learning opportunities and easier access to information and resources throughout the community. Centre Future ultimately aims to instill agency and clarify pathways towards the target audience’s desired futures, whether within El Paso or beyond.
They help guide the youth by utilizing outreach and partnering up with other organizations. For example, they joined forces with Love Letters of El Paso to host “Femmes of the Future,” a storytelling event on the streetcar, where they celebrated Women’s History Month through poetry, music and open mic performances.
Additionally, at their location at the Main Library they host workshops. Email etiquette 101, starting a YouTube channel, resume building and interview empowerment are all variations of workshops they host for career enrichment.
“What we’re trying to do as a program is really solve what is stopping people from going to work, to school and to give them the agency to be able to pursue the future that they want,” Centre Future employee Alexa Harrison said.
While the Main Library showcases it’s traditional literacy shelves and study spaces, Centre Future is a vibrant, Y2K-inspired office perfectly capturing the dynamic environment that resonates with Gen Z.
Centre Future said they chose a more vibrant space to represent what they stand for because they wanted to cater to the youth, blaming the main cause for brain drain as the youth’s surroundings.
They said Gen Z is an affirmative and highly innovative generation, yet when things do not serve them anymore, they move on.
When it comes to the Gen Z workforce, a key element is the older generation passing down their knowledge, experience, and confidence to the younger generation. However, cultural shifts created a growing divide between them.
Gen Z is constantly getting hit with the “cultural aversion to change,” Centre Future employee, Kalina Gallardo said.
Gallardo said older generations uttering the phrase, “this is the way things are,” often causes a disruption in generational connections. While older generations’ frameworks were effective for them, it fails to align with the youth’s aspirations.
“Operate in a culture of abundance,” Gallardo said.“(Elders) should be uplifting, empowering and enlightening (Gen Z).”
With some graduating secondary education during a pandemic that disrupted their learning to entering a job market frozen by economic uncertainty, navigating life after college has presented Gen Z with unique challenges.
Although Centre Future says what Gen Z holds persistent is drive, movement and grind. Centre Future urges the normalization of diligent effort, suggesting that “it is okay to have a college job to simply pay bills, but to find the beauty in working.” They urge the generation to live in the present and work hard right now to pave the way for the future.
Centre Future said their objective is not dictating actions, but to build trust in the community. “Brain drain” can build doubt and turn the city into a judgmental space that discourages young people from pursuing their dreams beyond El Paso.
Centre Future collectively wants to challenge the youth to not only find the power of belief in themselves, but to also find it in outside forces in El Paso again.
Brain drain, isn’t seen as a negative concept to Centre Future. Their program offers Gen Z the chance to explore El Paso’s potential and see what transpires. Centre Future reminds the El Paso community, “If you feel the need to leave, leave. Go for it!”
But just like Gen Z, Centre Future is here and taking up space, establishing agency and working to flip El Paso’s narrative, that staying in El Paso is a step worth taking and that it is possible to fall in love with the future.
